As for Trump trying to get Pence to overturn the election, Nope. Pence did not have the power or authority to do so. So it wasn't going to happen.
Do we not think that a US President just trying to get the VP to derail the confirmation process and overturn the election was a starkly memorable act?
It was certainly as reprehensible as Trump trying to get the Georgia secretary of state to "find" another 11780 votes to put the state back in the Trump column where The Don thought it belonged.
The language of the original Electoral Count Act is murky enough that scholars on both sides of the partisan divide spent time in 2020 trying to come to a definitive opinion on wiggle room for vice presidential action. But, the preponderance of that research came down on the side of the VP's role as ceremonial and that is what Pence's own researchers told him.
The proposed Electoral Count Reform and Presidential Transition Improvement Act of 2022 (S4573) is bipartisan and has 31 cosponsors in the Senate, 17 Democrats and 14 Republicans. Among other things it does clarify the VP's role is strictly ministerial, i.e, he opens and counts votes but may not change them.
The bill also makes it harder to protest a slate of electors on the day of the count --right now a single Senator or House member can object; the new law would require 1/5 of both the House and Senate to object-- and it also limits ability of a state to declare "a failed election," a case in which the state legislature can then overturn the popular vote.
That provision was added because some states in 2020 that had Republican dominated legislatures, but where the states' voters had gone for Biden, actually wanted to declare "a failed election" under the 1845 law and declare Trump the winner of the state's electoral votes. The new legislation says that a state legislature can only deem its election "failed" in case of "extraordinary and catastrophic events." Not everyone is happy with that as sufficient limitation, all things considered, and so alternatives are in negotiation.
Bottom line though? On that day of 1/6/21, it is
only because Mike Pence declined to do more than open and count the electoral votes as they were presented, and relay objections to the House and Senate for their separate considerations, that the country was not thrown into complete chaos by having one man essentially say
forget the election, the winner is my boss here, Don Trump.
What do we imagine might have happened then? All the Democrats in the House and Senate would have sighed and said
gee, and here we thought we had it... Come on!
What would the Joint Chiefs have decided to do with their allegiance when January 20 rolled around and Trump refused to leave if Pence had "extended" that presidency... and Biden meanwhile had a case pending in SCOTUS arguing that a Pence intervention in the electoral count was illegal? We are fortunate we didn't have to find out.
Sure, Pence is a calculating guy and has largely come off as a sycophant because that was the best way to stay in the mix of potential inheritors of Trump's followers, at least until Trump started pressuring him to flip the election. But, his adherence to traditional views of the VP's role in the electoral vote confirmation was crucial in 2021, and his political courage was admirable. He's not an election stealer, whatever else he is. Considering some of the less scrupulous GOP officials hanging around the Capitol on January 6, I say the nation was fortunate that none of them stood in Mike Pence's shoes.
Do we think that bipartisan members of Congress would mess with the Electoral Count Act if they felt that what happened (and, didn't happen) on January 6th were no big deals?
It wasn't just the violent incursion into the Capitol and ransacking of members' offices. It was about the fact that a President of the USA pressured his own Vice President to overturn a free and fair election because he thought he saw wiggle room in our rule of law. And it was about that particular vice president happening to disagree, and sticking to his opinion, and refusing to cave in to Trump's insane demand.
How you can possibly suggest that "it wasn't going to happen" though, that is beyond me.
Hundreds of scholars delved into that question of VP authority for weeks and the Congress itself has obviously now figured it was not a slam dunk or a no-brainer for Pence to come down on the side of accepting the electoral votes as proffered, and merely relaying objections as usual when they were made under rule of the law as it existed on that date.
We dodged a bullet that day for sure. The day needs remembrance not just for infamy but as a turning point in our complacency about living in a democracy. I say the republic was hanging by a thread and on the integrity of a few people in the right place at the right time.
www.theatlantic.com
www.senate.gov
